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Following the first day of training camp in River Falls, Chiefs head coach Todd Haley met with the media. Here are the highlights:

If the players met his expectations as a group during the conditioning test:

“About what I expected. There were both ways, you could say, but about what I expected. It’s a difficult portion of the physical and as a whole I felt pretty good.”

On Larry Johnson:

“I have not had an issue with Larry Johnson. Larry has obviously proven in the past that he capable of being a very good running back in the league. He’s a top echelon guy and right now running back in general is one of the groups I’m excited to see how it plays out because I think we have some talent there and we’ve got some competitive guys. It should be an interesting battle as we go forward.”

The difficulty for Glenn Dorsey to miss practice:

“Any time you miss it’s going to hurt you no matter who you are. Its football season and football players are out there on the field. They need to be out there ; it’s hard to miss any time and have a chance to compete at your best.”

On the kicking situation:

“The competition has definitely not been eliminated. I could probably pull out a list right now of veteran kickers that are staying ready. But with the roster numbers this year it definitely is a crunch to try to do what you want to do and who you can afford to lose. (Waived kicker) Connor (Barth) was a guy who worked really hard in the off-season and did a commendable job last year. I told all the guys they’re competing not only with the guys on this practice field but really guys at every other training camp that’s going on.”

Just how physical will camp be:

“There’s just a short amount of time and we’re on the two-a-day, one-a-day schedule but we’ll have the pads on every day until we think we know enough because you have to get ready in a short amount of time. The only way to get ready to play football in a short amount of time is with the pads on, in my opinion.”

Nothing earth shattering from Haley today, which isn’t a surprise since the only activity was the conditioning test. Not only is he continuing to beat the drum for open competition, but he’s damn convincing doing it. So I would guess there will be a shock or two in the first-second-third team lineups over the next couple of days. Not only to send a message to the players that he means it when he says every position is open, but to made a point to the fans and media as well. We are hours from the Chiefs hitting each other on a football field. It can’t get here soon enough.

Posted in Todd Haley on July 31st, 2009RSS 2.0 You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.